page_title: Tweed Courthouse
section_title: Architects
hierarchical_section_title: Tweed Courthouse / Architects
caption_attribution_description: English: Leopold Eidlitz, Bohemia-born American architect
context_page_description: The Tweed Courthouse, officially known as the Old New York County Courthouse, is a historic courthouse building at 52 Chambers Street in Civic Center, Manhattan, New York City. It was built in the Italianate style, with Romanesque Revival interiors. William M. "Boss" Tweed – the corrupt leader of Tammany Hall, a political machine that controlled the New York state and city governments when the courthouse was built – oversaw the building's erection. The Tweed Courthouse served as a judicial building for New York County, a county of New York state coextensive with the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the second-oldest city government building in Manhattan, after City Hall.
  The structure comprises pavilions to the east and west of a central section, as well as a rear wing to the south. Architect John Kellum and political appointee Thomas Little designed the first portion of the building, which was constructed from 1861 to 1872. Construction was interrupted in 1871 when Kellum died, and the corruption involved in the building's construction was exposed to the public.
context_section_description: John Kellum began his career as a house carpenter, later forming the firm King & Kellum in 1846 as the junior partner of Gamaliel King, who required an on-site partner while designing Brooklyn Borough Hall. The firm designed commercial buildings such as the Cary Building, one of the earliest cast-iron facades in New York City. Kellum started his own practice in 1860, and designed several buildings for Alexander T. Stewart, including his department store at Broadway and 10th Street, as well as the master plan for Garden City, Long Island. Kellum was hired for the Tweed Courthouse project in August 1861. He died in August 1871, around the same time the Tweed ring would lose its power. At his death, assessment of his work was mixed: while his obituary in Harper's Weekly praised him profusely, an anonymous writer for the American Architect and Building News said his involvement in the Tweed Courthouse negated anything else he had designed.
  Thomas Little, a political appointee of the New York City Board of Supervisors, was given ex officio credit – having been recognized as a collaborator by virtue of his membership on the Board of Supervisors. His first design was the New England Congregational Church in Brooklyn, which he designed in 1852. He submitted plans for the Tweed Courthouse in 1859. Multiple documents and testimonies indicate that Little was likely the first architect of the courthouse and Kellum had been hired later.
  Leopold Eidlitz was born in Prague and immigrated to the U.S. in 1843. He worked with Richard Upjohn and Otto Blesch to design churches, including St. George's Episcopal Church. Eidlitz's other projects included the New York State Capitol, which he started in 1875. The following year, Eidlitz was hired to finish the courthouse. He added the building's south wing and domed rotunda, in a similar design to the state capitol. Eidlitz believed the most important part of a building's design was its materials. The Romanesque style and his extensive use of brick and stone transformed the appearance of the courthouse, in contrast to Kellum's intricate cast-iron design. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission said Eidlitz's style departs from Kellum's classicism with "an American version of organic architecture expressed through medieval forms".
caption: Portrait of Leopold Eidlitz published in Architectural Record in 1908
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